• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Environmentalist calls for intervention in flooded Ondo community

Flood submerges 19 LGAs in Delta, displaces 60,000

An environmentalist, Kolade Benson Omoyeni, has called for immediate intervention in the flooded Aiyetoro Community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State.

He expressed fear that the erstwhile socialist community might be washed off as a result of incessant ocean surges if the government at all levels and other relevant authorities delayed in rescuing the community.

Omoyeni, in a statement he made available to journalists on Sunday in Akure, the Ondo State capital, said flooding had destroyed the architectural and economic buoyancy of the community, ascribing it to oil exploration activities of oil companies in adjoining communities.

While lamenting the level of destruction of the community, Omoyeni said, “the oil companies carry out exploration in the communities surrounding Aiyetoro without acceding to international standard practice “They carry out their exploration activities without recourse to global environmental protection laws.

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“This is the same inhuman attitudes of the multinational companies in the whole of the Niger Delta. Black shoots are threatening the existence of most oil host towns from Bayelsa to Ondo while the Petroleum Industrial Act (PIA) cares very little (even in theory) about the continuous reckless damaging of the riverine areas and lands. The economy of the host communities in Niger Delta region are lamed by the crude activities of the oil companies.”

He, therefore, called on environmentalists, governments, and the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (OSOPADEC) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to save the Aiyetoro community from being sunk by incessant ocean surge by ensuring the immediate implementation of abandoned intervention projects awarded for the same purpose.